Ben and Jerry's has a plan to make dairy more eco-friendly, and it's already working with New England farms to achieve it, Dairy Herd Management reported.
The popular ice cream brand, known for being socially conscious, has made the environment a priority. It's teamed up with seven farms to reduce production of heat-trapping, planet-warming gases through the Caring Dairy program — and so far, it has managed to reduce its output by 16%.
"We love making ice cream — but using our business to make the world a better place gives our work its meaning," says the Ben and Jerry's website on a page called "Issues We Care About."
The Caring Dairy program began in Europe in 2006 and in the U.S. in 2011, per Dairy Herd Management. Through the program, farms take multiple steps to support animal welfare, improve the lives of farmers, and even give the soil a boost.
Two years ago, the company added a Low Carbon Dairy pilot project, hiring Rebecca Manning to coordinate. Formerly employed in her Vermont family's dairy operation, she brought 15 years of herdsman experience to the table.
The company started by measuring the units of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of fat-protein corrected milk at each farm — in other words, it was checking how much heat-trapping gas was being produced for each standard unit of milk.
"That has been very important for our farms to be able to use as a driver to decrease their footprint," Manning said, per Dairy Herd Management.
That's important because surprisingly, most of the heat-trapping air pollution involved in the ice cream manufacturing process doesn't come from the food processing plants; instead, 75% comes from the ingredients and packaging, Dairy Herd Management revealed.
However, the company doesn't agree that animal agriculture is inherently bad for the environment. Instead, it sees air pollution as a solvable problem.
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To do that, it has the ambitious goal of reducing the air pollution output at its seven farms by 50% in three years, using seven types of changes: "enteric, regenerative agriculture, nutritious homegrown feed, renewable energy, animal welfare and longevity, nature and biodiversity, and manure management," per Dairy Herd Management.
"But we're not looking to do that at any cost," said Manning, per Dairy Herd Management. "We want these farms to be able to continue producing the milk needed to produce the ice cream that we make."
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